


Gunshots and Whiskey Shots

by mel_tokio



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Drunken Confessions, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27542647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mel_tokio/pseuds/mel_tokio
Summary: Colette really needs to break her habit of apologizing for everything. Luckily, Zelos is here to help with that...and possibly play cupid a bit in the process.
Relationships: Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Gunshots and Whiskey Shots

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr for Colloyd Week 2019. Reposted here with minor edits.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!”

An avalanche of red plastic cups and beer erupted over the edge of the table and onto the carefully polished tiles of the Wilder mansion floor.

Colette lowered her head in shame towards the party’s host.

“Zelos, where do you keep your cleaning supplies?” she asked him. “I’ll mop it up.”

Zelos set his margarita down on a nearby shelf and brushed the mess off with a wave of his hand.

“Don’t worry about it, hunny.” He patted her head. “Sebastian is right in the other room. I’ll just call him over to take care of it.”

Colette’s shoulders sank as her friend ran off to fetch his butler. She knew this sort of thing was Sebastian’s job, and he was being paid quite well to do it, but something about another person cleaning up her mess just didn’t sit right with her. Not only that, but she’d ruined a perfectly good game of beer pong!

“I’m sorry, Lloyd.” She turned to face her partner. “You were doing so well! We might have won if I hadn’t bumped into the table.”

Lloyd raised his eyebrows at her.

“Are you kidding me? You’re the one who made most of the shots. We wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did without you!”

“But I’m the one who messed everything up, too,” she insisted, fists tightly clenched. “I’m really sorry.”

Zelos reentered the room, echoed by a thundering crash of glass doors that made Colette jump a bit.

“Okay, that’s it!” he announced, reaching his right hand into his jacket pocket. “Time to bring out the big guns!” 

With all the showmanship expected of a (most likely buzzed) man accustomed to being the center of attention, he pulled out a small, neon pink pistol.

“Huh?” Colette tilted her head in confusion. “That gun doesn’t look very big to me.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty small,” Lloyd agreed.

Zelos shook his head, his face sinking into the palm of his free hand. “It’s a figure of speech, bumpkins,” he muttered through the spaces between his fingers.

“Well, it’s kind of a confusing one, don’t you think?” said Colette

“Yeah, it is,” said Lloyd. “Talking about big guns when you’re holding a small one?”

“You kids are beyond help,” Zelos groaned. “But that’s not the point.” He handed the gun to Lloyd. “I need you to make a promise to me. Hold this in your left hand and hold up your righ—No, not that far up, just next to your head. Okay, good, much better. Repeat after me.”

Lloyd turned around to look at the rest of his fellow partygoers, the befuddlement apparent on his face.

“Okay, am I the only one here who’s really confused?”

“For possibly the first time in history, Lloyd, the answer is no,” Genis interjected from the couch, taking a small sip of his orange juice. “We’re actually all just as lost as you are.”

“Everybody shut up and let me work my magic!” Zelos whined, arms flailing about in frustration. “Like, I said, Lloyd, repeat after me.”

“If you say so,” Lloyd shrugged.

“I, Lloyd Irving–” Zelos began.

“Huh?” Lloyd interrupted. “But you’re not Lloyd Irving!”

Colette could hear Raine stifle a giggle at this. She wasn’t sure how many glasses of wine the Professor had consumed at that point, but it was enough to put her in a different, more carefree mood than Colette had ever seen her in before. It was oddly fascinating.

“Bud, I swear to the Goddess,” Zelos continued. “Just repeat what I say or I’m replacing this water gun with the real deal and putting the barrel against your head. ‘I, Lloyd Irving, do solemnly swear…’”

Lloyd sighed, apparently deciding it was easiest to just go along with whatever bizarre plan Zelos had in mind without any questions..

“I, Lloyd Irving, do solemnly swear…”

“…that every time Colette Brunel apologizes for the rest of the evening…”

“…that every time Colette Brunel apologizes for the rest of the evening…”

“…I will shoot her with this water gun.”

Lloyd glanced over at Colette, as if checking for permission to repeat that part, and she encouraged him with a small nod.

“…I will shoot her with this water gun.”

“If, at any point, I am to break this promise…”

“If, at any point, I am to break this promise…”

“…I shall face a punishment bestowed upon me by the Great Zelos Wilder.”

“…I shall face a punishment bestowed upon me by the Great Zelos Wilder.”

Looking at Lloyd’s face, Colette could tell that he was a little uneasy at the prospect of facing whatever nebulous punishment Zelos had in mind, but he didn’t prod Zelos for any details, so neither did she.

Zelos nodded in satisfaction at the pact being completed.

“Now, let’s shake on it...”

The two shook hands.

“...And let’s drink on it!”

Lloyd accepted this part of the deal without question and began to bring his rum and cola to his lips.

“No, no,” Zelos raised his hand to stop him. “When I say, ‘Let’s drink on it,’ I mean we’re doing _shots_.” He looked over to Sebastian. “Sebastian, can you bring me the whiskey and two clean shot glasses?”

Lloyd’s eyes widened at this proposal.

“I’ve never done a shot before, though.”

“All the more reason to do one now!” Zelos insisted with a firm clap on Lloyd’s shoulder. “It’s a right of passage, Bud.”

“Can I do one, too?” Colette piped up. “In solidarity?”

Zelos’s smile spread a little wider.

“You know what, Sebastian? Make it six shot glasses. Everyone who isn’t a pipsqueak is getting in on this.”

In a matter of seconds, Sebastian brought the necessary supplies to the table, and Zelos began to pour.

“Gather round, everyone! And bring chasers.”

Regal, Raine, and Sheena came up to meet their companions, and all six grabbed shot glasses.

Zelos raised his. “To one year of a unified world. Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

From the times Colette had seen people do shots, it didn’t look particularly difficult. It was just swallowing something really fast, right? Surely there couldn’t be much skill involved. But as she tilted her head back and attempted to pour the whiskey down her throat, her reflexes immediately betrayed her. She’d heard before that straight alcohol burned, but she had no idea it tasted so _bitter_! The whiskey seemed to be entering her mouth too fast for her to swallow it, and as it began to pool up over her tongue, she instinctively parted her lips and dribbled about half of the shot onto her chin.

“Oh, no! I’m sorry, Zelos! I didn’t mean to waste your–”

Her apology was interrupted by a thin jet of water to her side.

“Good job, Bud! You’re getting the hang of this already!” Zelos inserted himself between Colette and Lloyd, placing an arm around each of their shoulders. “As for you, Colette, don’t worry about it. All this tells me is that you need more practice. And Lloyd, don’t think I didn’t notice that your form was sloppy, too. But we’ll all be right here with you to help you improve your skills! Now, take a sip of your screwdriver, hunny. You’re gonna need something to get that taste out of your mouth before we go again.”

Colette grabbed her cup and did as she was instructed as Zelos poured some more whiskey into the shot glasses.

“All right, buckle up, everyone!,” he shouted. “We’re gonna keep on doing shots until our less experienced friends manage to get the hang of it!”

* * *

“Oh my gosh, Lloyd! Are you okay?”

Lloyd looked up from the couch he had just fallen back onto, attempting to regain his bearings.

“I-I’m fine,” he croaked. “I think I just stood up a little too quickly. The room is still kinda spinny.”

Colette could see the corners of Genis’ mouth tilting upward as he strained to hold back his laughter.

“If you can’t even get off of the couch without falling, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’re not gonna be able to walk back to the inn with us.”

“Genis is right,” Colette agreed before Lloyd had any chance to argue. “I’m feeling a little dizzy too, so maybe we should sit down a little longer.”

She wasn’t actually all that dizzy, but she didn’t want to leave until she was completely sure Lloyd was all right.

Raine grabbed her jacket off the coat rack and started to put it on.

“Do you want us to wait to leave until you two are ready?” she offered.

“No, no, don’t let us inconvenience you!” Colette waved her arms in front of her. “As long as you leave one of the room keys with us, we can head back on our own when we’re ready.”

“I suppose that’s for the best,” said Raine. “Zelos might need a couple babysitters anyway.”

Colette glanced at the party’s host, still snoring on the same armchair he’d passed out on ten minutes ago.

“Hehe, yeah, I guess he does.”

“Just be safe, all right?”

“Of course.”

The two conscious occupants of the mansion said their goodbyes to the other guests as they headed back to the inn.

Colette took a sip of her glass of water. Zelos had insisted that she and Lloyd drink a lot of it after Colette finally managed to do a passable shot—a feat which had taken four attempts in total to achieve—and while she’d certainly been experiencing some of the ‘spinniness’ Lloyd had just described earlier, constant rehydration and approximately half a loaf of bread had cured the feeling fairly quickly.

Lloyd, on the other hand, didn’t seem much soberer now than he had been two hours ago. Colette was pretty sure he hadn’t had any more to drink than she had, so she wasn’t sure why his reaction to the alcohol was so much stronger than hers.

“Aw, sweet! There’s still more bread?”

Lloyd leaned forward, attempting to reach for the last remaining slice of bread on the coffee table, but falling about a foot short of it. Colette couldn’t help but smile a little at this. It was kind of cute seeing _him_ be the clumsy one for once.

“Here, let me grab that for you.”

“Thanks.”

Lloyd shoved the bread into his mouth like it was the first thing he’d eaten in days, crumbs falling like snow onto his shirt.

“You were hungry, huh?”

Lloyd turned his head in Colette’s direction, scattering crumbs in all directions.

“I juss…really lub breh,” he mumbled through a full mouth.

“Bread _is_ pretty good, isn’t it?” Colette giggled. “But you got some in your hair.”

She reached for the bit of hair that fell atop his nose and plucked an errant clump of bread from it. Actually, now that she looked at it, his hair was pretty messy even with the bread removed from it. Several stray locks were flopping onto his face, partially covering his eyes. Could he see properly like that? Maybe that was part of the reason he was having such difficulty maintaining his balance.

Before she even had a chance to think about what she was doing, she found her fingers combing through the tangles, pushing it back out of his face.

Lloyd’s eyes, now completely visible, stared unblinking at her as he gulped down the mouthful of bread.

She quickly retracted her hand.

“Sorry.” Her gaze lowered to her feet. “I guess that was kind of weird, wasn’t it?”

He frowned and sprayed her with the water gun.

“No apologizing, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Sor—”

Lloyd raised the gun again, and she caught herself before he could follow through on his threat.

Colette continued to stare at the floor, and the two said nothing until Lloyd swallowed his last bite of bread.

“Hey, Colette?” he spoke up, a hint of hesitation in his voice.

She finally turned her head in his direction.

“Yeah?”

“Just now…were you…flirting with me?”

“W-What?” Colette jolted in her seat and promptly broke eye contact once again, feeling as though all the blood in her body were rushing to her cheeks.

“It’s just…” Lloyd elaborated, “Zelos told me once that when a girl plays with your hair, it means she’s flirting with you.”

Well, it wasn’t untrue.

“Oh, um…I guess I was, then,” she admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

The two sat there in silence for an awkward eternity. Colette, still unable to look directly at Lloyd, found herself wishing she were a little drunker.

Lloyd finally spoke up.

“Does that mean that you…y’know, _like_ me?”

Hadn’t she already made that clear? Why keep torturing her like this? She scanned the coffee table for a bottle of liquor to take a swig from, but they all seemed to be on the other side of the room and therefore out of reach. Apparently liquid confidence wasn’t going to help her through this.

“Y-yeah,” she eventually squeaked.

“For real?” he asked.

“For real,” she nodded. “For a really long time now.”

Suddenly Colette felt a pair of arms wrap around her, squeezing her almost tightly enough to restrict her breathing.

“L-Lloyd?”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, you dork?”

She could feel herself shivering a little against his body. She let out a nervous laugh.

“It just…never felt like the right time, I guess.”

“Well, I’m glad you told me now,” he said, hugging her even tighter.

“It…doesn’t bother you then?”

“Why the hell would it bother me, silly?” He ruffled her hair. “It makes me happy!”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She relaxed her muscles a bit, leaning into his embrace a little more as he slowly rubbed his hands up and down her back.

“Thanks,” she said through a smile that was beginning to strain her cheeks. “You’re sweet.”

“ _You’re_ sweet,” Lloyd countered.

The pair stayed like that for a little while, engulfed in each other’s warmth, giving their heartbeats some time to slow to a reasonable pace.

Eventually Lloyd broke the silence.

“Hey, Colette?”

“Hm?”

He pulled away a little bit to look at her face, keeping his hands on her shoulders.

“If you…if you like me, does that mean it would be okay if I, um…kissed you?”

She blinked, almost ready to pinch herself to make sure this was truly happening.

“Do you…want to?”

Lloyd reached a hand behind him to scratch the back of his neck, his face nearly as red as his favorite shirt. “Um, yeah, I do, if you do.”

Colette nodded with such force that she half expected her skull to separate from her neck. “I do!”

“Great!” Lloyd grinned. Maybe it was just her imagination, but Colette swore she could see his teeth chattering a bit. Could it be that he was nervous about this, too? “Then…here goes nothing.”

Colette knew you were supposed to close your eyes when you kissed someone, so she did, but the darkness immediately disoriented her, creating a whole new set of concerns. How was her mouth supposed to find Lloyd’s if she couldn’t see where he was? She was totally going to mess this up, wasn’t she?

But she couldn’t hesitate for too long, right? She steeled herself and leaned forward, hoping that by some miracle her lips would end up against his.

They did.

…And their teeth crashed together like a pair of cymbals. Apparently she should have been less concerned with aim and more concerned with force. She pulled away from him.

“Oh no! I’m sorry, Lloyd! That was really bad, wasn’t it?”

He placed his hand on her head and began to stroke it, smiling gently.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad that—”

“ _Lloyd Irving!_ ” an authoritative voice boomed from the armchair just across from the couch. “You have broken your promise!”

Colette jumped as the body she had completely forgotten was in the room stirred to an upright position, his index finger pointing at Lloyd like a weapon.

“Z-Zelos?” Lloyd appeared to be just as startled as she was. “How long have you been awake?”

Zelos lifted himself from his seat, a few joints cracking audibly as he stretched.

“Long enough, but I’m not so rude as to interrupt when my friends are having a conversation. Unless, of course, one of them breaks their promise to me, which is exactly what you just did by failing to break out the water gun just now. And so, as per our agreement, I will now bestow an appropriate punishment upon you! And that punishment is…” He drummed his hands against the coffee table. “…dinner with this beautiful little angel—” he gestured toward Colette “—in Meltokio’s finest restaurant tomorrow evening! I’ll make the reservations and pay for all expenses, so don’t worry about that.”

Lloyd, who had clearly been bracing himself for something much worse, released the tension from his shoulders.

“What? How is that a punishm—”

Zelos put a finger to Lloyd’s mouth.

“Silence! Do not question the Great Zelos!”

“Um, okay then.” Lloyd relented.

“Great!” Zelos settled back onto his chair. “Now that that’s all settled, I’m gonna lie back and get some more beauty sleep. Looks like it’s started raining, so you two can just camp out in my room for tonight. You can borrow some pajamas from my dresser, second drawer from the top. Oh, and the bed has plenty of room for the both of you.” He winked.

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Colette asked. “The rain doesn’t look that bad.”

“Please, I insist,” said Zelos. “In fact, I’ll be offended if you don’t accept my hospitality.”

She couldn’t exactly argue with that.

“Well, um, if you say so.” She turned to Lloyd. “Will you be able to make it up the stairs okay?”

Lloyd nodded.

“Yeah, I’m feeling a lot less dizzy than before. Let’s go.”

Sure enough, he managed to stand up just fine. Still, Colette let him walk up ahead of her so she could keep an eye on him. Better safe than sorry.

Despite a few shaky steps, Lloyd made it to Zelos’s bedroom without any problems. He made his way over to the mahogany dresser and began shuffling through its contents.

“Are these ones good for you?” He tossed Colette a navy blue silk pajama set.

“Uh, sure,” she said. “I like blue. Feels a little weird to be wearing Zelos’s clothes, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s better than sleeping in our regular clothes. That would be super uncomfortable.” He grabbed a similarly styled violet set for himself…and proceeded to start unbuttoning his pants.

“Um, Lloyd?”

Lloyd flushed bright red as she looked at him, quickly turning his whole body away from her.

“Oh, crap! I guess I should have gone to the bathroom to get changed, huh? Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” she reassured him. “We can get changed in here. I trust you not to look if I go to the other side of the room.”

“Are you really okay with that?”

“Yeah, I’ll just tell you when I’m done.”

“Okay, I’ll look away then.”

Colette unzipped her dress, letting it fall to the floor. She instinctively reached back to unhook her bra, stopping at the last second when it occurred to her that Lloyd might be able to see through her shirt. He probably wouldn’t notice, but it was still best to just sleep in it, right? She slid her arms into the sleeves of the pajama shirt and buttoned it up, a little surprised at just how big it was on her. It was actually quite cozy. She then removed her tights and replaced them with pants that were several inches too long for her and required her to roll up the bottoms of the legs.

“Okay, I’m done,” she announced, gathering her discarded clothes and making her way to the nearby loveseat to fold them.

Lloyd walked over and began to do the same with his own clothes.

He looked over at her and his face lit up.

“You look really cute in those.”

For the millionth time that night, Colette felt like she could faint from sheer happiness.

“You really think so?”

“I know so.”

“Hehe, thanks. You look cute, too.”

“Aw, thanks.” He looked down at the floor bashfully. “We can just leave our clothes on top of the dresser or something. I’m fine with sleeping on this couch thing. You can have the bed.”

“What? No, you can have it!” Colette insisted.

“No, you!” he asserted.

“Well, if you insist…”

Knowing that this argument would just go on forever unless she gave in, Colette headed over to the bed and burrowed into the sheets. It was a really nice bed. Even with her bra on, this was the comfiest she had felt in a while, and there was plenty of space. Even if she spread her arms and legs as wide as they would go, she only took up half of the mattress. It felt like a bit of a waste having all this room to herself…

Did she dare...?

“Hey, Lloyd?”

“Yeah?”

“You know…I don’t mind if you get in the bed, too. It’s really big.”

Lloyd jerked up from the loveseat.

“A-are you sure? I roll around in my sleep sometimes. And Genis says I snore.”

“I don’t mind, really.”

She elected not to add that the prospect of him rolling around and possibly ending up snuggled up to her was, in fact, a major plus.

“O-okay then.”

He got up and settled in next to her, just barely close enough that she could brush her fingertips against his. She turned off the lamp.

“You know,” she said, “if you don’t want to go to dinner tomorrow, I can just tell Zelos I’m not feeling well and we can probably get out of it.”

“I do want to go, though,” he asserted.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I mean, going to some fancy, snobby place like whatever Zelos has in mind is probably gonna suck, but as long as I’m with you, I’m sure I’ll have fun.”

“Yeah,” she giggled. “I guess we do always have fun together, don’t we?”

“Yeah! And besides…it’ll be kinda nice to one-up all those rich jerks.”

Colette couldn’t see Lloyd’s face in the dark, but she could hear the mischievous grin in his voice.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Out of everyone there, I’ll be the one with the cutest date!”

Without even thinking about it, she moved closer to his side, her head finding a home on his shoulder.

“Hey, Lloyd?”

“Yeah?”

“You wanna try kissing again? I’ll try to do better this time.”

Lloyd grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“I’d like that a lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> For reference, according to this comic, Lloyd IS canonically more of a lightweight than Colette, so I didn't pull that out of my ass:  
> https://dimensionslip.tumblr.com/post/169255720484/tales-of-link-happy-link-year-2-new-years


End file.
